If you do not, Stalin continues, ‘ I will begin to smash you like criminals who disregard the honour and interests of their homeland.’ Nobody would have doubted the dictator meant it. To the discomfort of the assembled, Medvedev read out Stalin’s 17 September 1941 telegram to defence factory heads: ‘ I ask you honestly and on time to fulfil orders for the supply of tank hulls,’ the telegram begins. His act as a tough man from Moscow was an embarrassment. But the former law professor does not make a convincing Bolshevik thug, even wearing black leather coats, which were à la mode with Russian revolutionaries. Medvedev now holds the same post once held by Molotov during the Second World War, charged with galvanising Russia’s defence plants.

In the last week of March 2023 the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, travelled to the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant to chair a meeting of the working group of the Military-Industrial Commission of the Russian Federation.

Russian tank battles modern day